Senior travel booms in China, amid increasing grey population

When Li Caohua retired in her late 50s, the doctor immediately joined millions of other Chinese seniors and hit the road to see more of her giant country.At the top of her destination list was tropical Hainan island in the south and the ancient villages around her home city of Beijing. Then there was the most grandiose of China’s landscapes — the mythic brown waters of the Yangtze River and its mist-enveloped Three Gorges. Travel agencies and packages catering to elderly Chinese say business is booming, amid overall growth in the country’s travel industry. The number of senior tourists in China jumped by 58 percent last year compared to 2013, according to the state-run China Daily newspaper, and 62 percent of Chinese senior citizens join organized tours.

We are fortunate in China that we can travel, and I’ve seen so much.

Retired doctor Li Caohua

One such tour ended tragically Monday night when a river cruiser carrying more than 450 people, mostly elderly tourists, capsized in a heavy storm in the Yangtze. But the boom in travel has been one economic bright spot to a graying population that’s presenting China with one of its most serious policy challenges. With U.N. data showing the number of Chinese over age 65 projected to almost double to 210 million people by 2030, the country’s retirement system will struggle to keep up, especially as China’s one-child policy limits the number of working-age people who can pay for the pensions and meager benefits of their elders.

Now, they want to go out and see the rest of the world. These people have seen their share of suffering in their lives. Now, with economic development, it’s so different from previous generations.

Beijing travel agent Qi Chun Guan

Asia-Pacific